Making Your Own Name: The Subconscious Influence of Names on Our Lives

A wise man once told me: “It’s not the name that makes the man, but the man that makes the name.” At the time, that sounded profound. But, is it?

Our names carry with us certain frequencies, baggage, and feelings. Can changing one’s name tune us into a different subconscious channel, and positively influence our reality – how we talk to ourselves and view the world?

Author Mavis Himes, in her book “The Power of Names,” wrote the following: “Most of us take our names for granted. Yet our first name – both an introduction and a greeting – is one of the first words we learn. Assigned to us by our parents with love, it is freighted with their expectations and hopes for our future.”

Himes continues: “Our surname, meanwhile, carries our collective history: It is a branding of transmission and affiliation, linking us to our ancestral past.”

“Our name rolls off our tongue with ease and familiarity. It is a signifier around which our identity is intimately linked. It travels with us like a passport, testifying to our unique presence on this earth. It is a permanent market that functions as a shorthand for who we are…,” she writes.  

Here’s an example (not in Himes’s book): If a son is named after a father who deserts the family, and the mother and perhaps future stepfather talk ill of the biological father, the son might unknowingly absorb and internalize those negative messages into his subconscious.

Say, in this case, both the son and biological father share the name “Mark.” If there’s talk in his home of how “Big Mark” (the biological father) is a bad person, and the name “Big Mark” is used in a derogatory way, when the child grows up and becomes “Big Mark” those harmful programs might activate in the subconscious mind and start playing on repeat, causing what could be damaging effects for the young man, as well as trouble in his work, relationships, and overall confidence and success.

Further, if he keeps his father’s last name, he could be asked if he’s related to another person with the same last name, which could cause pain and shame for the young man, as he may have no relationship and/or connection to his father’s side of the family. He may know little-to-nothing about his ancestry, heritage or kin.  

These, and many other types of situations, can create an acrimonious, gloomy, and pessimistic future for someone, whom otherwise, unburden by the subconscious programing of an unfortunate name, could potentially have exuded a tremendous amount of happiness, joy, and opportunities for a successful and fruitful life.

Looking on the bright side, an unfortunate name could also be a blessing. It may even be one’s karma or spiritual journey on this planet to experience the impacts of the given name. Take the Johnny Cash song “A Boy Named Sue,” where a boy’s “daddy left home,” and named his son Sue to toughen him up knowing he’d be ridiculed for having a girl’s name and would have to fight off those who taunted him.

The father explains choosing the name “Sue” for his son in the verse: “Son, this world is rough, and if a man’s gonna make it, he’s gotta be tough. And I knew I wouldn’t be there to help you along, so I gave you that name and I said goodbye. I knew you’d have to get tough or die, and it’s that name that helped to make you strong.”

Name changes are common in the Bible. In most instances, these new names signify a change in consciousness (usually attaining a level of higher consciousness).

“Abram to Abraham, Sarai to Sarah, Saul to Paul, we know of the many name changes that occur in the Bible, but we don’t often understand the reason or significance for these transformations,” according to a Christianity.com article by Hope Bolinger. “Name changes, most often given by God, establishes a new identity and purpose God wants its user to embody.”

“The name given by God reminds its user who has everything under control and who will help them in their new and intimidating purpose,” the Christianity.com article says. “… The name serves as a reminder that they are not who they used to be. Whether this implies a good or bad alteration, a name change signifies a person has experienced a metamorphosis and looks very different than they had from their previous self.”

“The person who names has power over the person being named,” writes Bolinger. “So, when God changes a person’s moniker in the Bible, he shows he has control over their lives and circumstances, but he also reveals his power.”  

“God reveals to us a number of things when he changes names in the Bible. First of all, he shows us that we can have more than one purpose in life.”

Himes writes: “From birth to death, our name is the signature of our personal journey through life. Our name accompanies us as a faithful and, in most cases, permanent marker of identification, that permanent abode in which we live.”  

“The birth name animates us, creates us, and demands of us a certain responsibility. We are each of us invited to take a name, to infuse our name with elan and vigor, to bring our name into circulation with vitality, to make our name come alive with our own life-affirming energy,” she continues.   

“A given name is never random. It trickles down through the unconscious of the name-givers. While life and birth circumstances, moral qualities, physical characteristics, and a simple preference (we just liked the sound of it) may contribute to the choice of a given name, it is rarely that neutral in its selection.”

What then should one do, if they feel their name is a subconscious anchor, dragging them down into unlucky situations, tangling them up with a boisterous inner critic and miring them in hapless circumstances?

Legendary hip hop artist KRS-ONE says when one changes his name, he changes his reality.

“The second you start renaming your environment, you start creating new realities,” says KRS-ONE, whose birth name is Lawrence Parker.

KRS-ONE said he “did away” with his birth name around the age of 16-17. “That’s not my name anymore,” he said. He then created the hip-hop persona Knowledge Reigns Supreme Over Nearly Everyone (KRS-ONE).

Changing one’s name is the “average thing to do in hip-hop,” say KRS-ONE.

“This was normal for hip-hop, if you’re going to be an MC (master of ceremonies) you’ve got to change your name,” he said.

“In hip-hop, nobody used their government name.” The once Lawrence Parker searched for a “dramatic name” like Grandmaster Flash, Afrika Bambaataa or DJ Kool Herc (short for Hercules). When Lawrence became KRS-ONE, he created his own “world,” he said.

“When I started calling myself this, I created a reality around what I call myself,” he continued. “I changed my perception of myself.”

It’s theorized that when hip hop artists, who may have come from poverty in their upbringings, take on stage names and personas, and start writing and performing songs about having money, cars, jewelry, dating models, etc., they manifest these things into their lives.

“[The rappers] had none of this,” KRS-ONE said. “But, when they started rapping and saying ‘this is what I look like to me’, [the rappers] got it! They got it so much it ruined their lives.”

A person is also required to live up to the character he creates. For KRS-ONE, he has a reputation of being a wise teacher and philosopher. But, his story didn’t start that way. KRS-ONE dropped out of school in the eighth grade, and began studying at the public library, where he gained a wealth of knowledge. He now lectures at Ivy League schools like Yale, Harvard and Columbia University.

It’s vital to build a positive persona, however, because a rapper can also foreshadow and manifest legal troubles, confrontations, and even their own death. This is illustrated in the ominous and foreboding title of Notorious B.I.G.’s 1994 album “Ready to Die.” Notorious B.I.G. was infamously murdered in 1997, three years after he released the massively successful record.

“If you’re gonna name your album ‘Criminal Minded’ [debut album by Boogie Down Productions], don’t be shocked if your DJ gets killed. If you’re gonna name your album ‘Ready to Die,’ don’t be shocked…,” KRS-ONE said.

DJ Scott La Rock was shot and killed in Aug. 1987. La Rock co-founded Boogie Down Productions along with KRS-ONE and rapper and producer D-Nice.

“Watch what you call yourself. And, watch what you call your environment. Because it’s your mind that’s creating your reality.”

“It’s like you’re sitting somewhere, and the world looks to you one way, because that’s the way you look at yourself. Then you change your name, and the same world looks different.”

He likened this concept to the podium he was standing behind. “What if I turned [the podium] over and stood on it? It’d be a stage. What if I painted it, and put art on it? It’d be a canvas... this thing could do some damage over somebody’s head. It becomes a weapon. It could be a ladder. You could stand on [the podium] and get to a higher point.”

“How we look at things, we create the reality we want.”

“In philosophy and metaphysics, when you change your name, you change your reality,” said KRS-ONE. “And when you change your name, new opportunities come to you.”